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Down vith children! Do them in!Boil their bones and fry their skin!Bish them, sqvish them, bash them, mash them!Brrreak them, shake them, slash them, smash them!Offer chocs vith magic powder!Say “Eat up!” then say it louder.Crrram them full of sticky eats,Send them home still guzzling sveets.And in the morning little foolsGo marching off to separate schools.A girl feels sick and goes all pale.She yells, “Hey look! I've grrrown a tail!”A boy who's standing next to herScreams, “Help! I think I'm grrrowing fur!” Another shouts, “Vee look like frrreaks!There's viskers growing on our cheeks!”A boy who vos extremely tallCries out, “Vot's wrong? I'm grrrowing small!”Four tiny legs begin to sprrroutFrom everybody rrround about.And all at vunce, all in a trrrice,There are no children! Only MICE!

Down vith children! Do them in!Boil their bones and fry their skin!Bish them, sqvish them, bash them, mash them!Brrreak them, shake them, slash them, smash them!Offer chocs vith magic powder!Say “Eat up!” then say it louder.Crrram them full of sticky eats,Send them home still guzzling sveets.And in the morning little foolsGo marching off to separate schools.A girl feels sick and goes all pale.She yells, “Hey look! I've grrrown a tail!”A boy who's standing next to herScreams, “Help! I think I'm grrrowing fur!” Another shouts, “Vee look like frrreaks!There's viskers growing on our cheeks!”A boy who vos extremely tallCries out, “Vot's wrong? I'm grrrowing small!”Four tiny legs begin to sprrroutFrom everybody rrround about.And all at vunce, all in a trrrice,There are no children! Only MICE!

Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern

Meaning not yet available

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
Roald Dahl
Attribution: attributed
Country attributed
Not established
A country attribution does not establish the earliest origin.
Historical period
Approximate author period: c. 1953 AD · modern
Approximate author-period anchor from life dates 1916 to 1990; Wikidata Q25161, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q25161 (accessed 2026-10-08). Not a quotation composition date.
An author lifetime, approximate period or collection date is not necessarily the date when these words were first written or spoken.
Recorded source
Contributor-provided quotation collection

Supplied reference C; CSV row 146718; supplied attribution, independently unverified

A collection's publication date can be later than the words it records.